1917 in the United States

Incumbents

Federal government

• President: Woodrow Wilson
• [Vice President of the United States|President of the United States|Vice President]: Thomas R. Marshall
• Chief Justice: Edward Douglass White
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Champ Clark
• Congress: 64th, 65th

Events

January–March

• January 1 - The University of Oregon defeats the University of Pennsylvania 14–0 in college football's 3rd Annual Rose Bowl.
• January 10 - The Silent Sentinels begin their protest in favor of women's suffrage in front of the White House.
• January 11 - German saboteurs set off the Kingsland explosion at Kingsland, New Jersey, one of the events leading to U.S. involvement in World War I.
• January 22 - World War I: President Woodrow Wilson calls for "peace without victory" in Europe.
• January 25
• *The Danish West Indies is sold to the United States for $25 million.
• *An anti-prostitution drive in San Francisco attracts huge crowds to public meetings. At one meeting attended by 7,000 people, 20,000 are kept out for lack of room. In a conference with Rev. Paul Smith, an outspoken foe of prostitution, 300 prostitutes make a plea for toleration, explaining they had been forced into the practice by poverty. When Smith asks if they will take other work at $8 to $10 a week, the ladies laugh derisively, which loses them public sympathy. The police close about 200 houses of prostitution shortly thereafter.
• January 28 - The United States ends its search for Pancho Villa.
• January 30 - Pershing's troops in Mexico begin withdrawing back to the United States. They reach Columbus, New Mexico February 5.
• February 3 - World War I: The United States breaks off diplomatic relations with Germany.
• February 5
• * Congress and Senate override a veto by President Woodrow Wilson to reinstate the Immigration Act of 1917, which allows more restrictions on immigration to the U.S., including the wholesale ban of people from much of Asia.
• * The U.S. Army force under command of John J. Pershing reached Columbus, New Mexico, ending the Pancho Villa Expedition.
• February 17 – New York City Food Riot of 1917
• February 24 - World War I: United States ambassador to the United Kingdom, Walter H. Page, is shown the intercepted Zimmermann Telegram, in which Germany offers to give Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico back to Mexico if Mexico declares war on the United States.
• March 1 – The U.S. government releases the plaintext of the Zimmermann Telegram to the public.
• March 2 - The enactment of the Jones Act grants Puerto Ricans United States citizenship.
• March 4
• *President Woodrow Wilson and Vice President Thomas R. Marshall begin their second terms.
• *Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first woman member of the United States House of Representatives.
• March 7 – "Livery Stable Blues", recorded with "Dixie Jazz Band One Step" on February 26 by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, becomes the first jazz recording commercially released. On August 17 the band records "Tiger Rag".
• March 8 – The United States Senate adopts the cloture rule in order to limit filibusters.
• March 26 - The Seattle Metropolitans become the first team based in the United States to win the Stanley Cup.
• March 31 - The United States takes possession of the Danish West Indies, which become the US Virgin Islands, after paying $25 million to Denmark.

April–June

• April 2 - World War I: President Woodrow Wilson asks the U.S. Congress for a declaration of war on Germany.
• April 6 - World War I: Congress passes a resolution declaring war on Germany that is signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson that day.
• April 10 - Eddystone explosion: an explosion at an ammunition plant near Chester, Pennsylvania, kills 139, mostly female workers.
• April 27 - Hastings mine explosion: an explosion in a coal mine in Colorado kills 121.
• May 18 - World War I: The Selective Service Act passes the U.S. Congress, giving the president the power of conscription.
• April 19 - World War I: Army transport fires the U.S.'s first shots in anger in the war when her gun crew drives off a German U-boat in the English Channel.
• May 21 - The Great Atlanta fire of 1917 destroys over 300 acres.
• May 26 - A tornado strikes Mattoon, Illinois, causing devastation and killing 101 people.
• June 4 - The very first Pulitzer Prizes are awarded: Laura E. Richards, Maud Howe Elliott, and Florence Hall receive the first Pulitzer for a biography. Jean Jules Jusserand receives the first Pulitzer for history for his work With Americans of Past and Present Days. Herbert Bayard Swope receives the first Pulitzer for journalism for his work for the New York World.
• June 5 - World War I: Conscription in the United States begins.
• June 8 - Speculator Mine disaster: a fire at the Granite Mountain and Speculator ore mine outside Butte, Montana kills 168 workers.
• June 13 - Phillips Petroleum Company incorporated in Oklahoma.
• June 15 - The U.S. enacts the Espionage Act, effectively suppressing dissent about U.S. entry in World War I.

July–September

• July 1–3 - East St. Louis massacre: A labor dispute ignites a race riot in East St. Louis, Illinois, which leaves 250 dead.
• July 12 - The Phelps Dodge Corporation deports over 1,000 suspected IWW members from Bisbee, Arizona.
• July 28 - The Silent Parade is organized by the NAACP in New York to protest the East St. Louis massacre of early July, as well as lynchings in Texas and Tennessee.
• August
• * The Green Corn Rebellion, an uprising by several hundred farmers against the World War I draft, takes place in central Oklahoma.
• * The Messenger, a political and literary magazine by and for African-Americans, begins publication in New York City.
• August 3 - The New York Guard is founded.
• August 23 - Following the detention of an African American soldier, 150 soldiers of the 24th Infantry Regiment march on Houston in what would be called the Houston Riot; four soldiers and 15 civilians die and, following courts-martial, 19 soldiers are hanged.

October–December

• October 12 - The first regiment is stationed at the newly commissioned Naval Operating Base in Norfolk, VA.
• October 19 - Dallas Love Field opens as an airfield in Texas.
• November 7 - Women's suffrage in the United States: Women win the right to vote in New York State.
• November 14 - Night of Terror: The superintendent of the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia orders the guards to brutalize the suffragist inmates.
• November 17 - Action of 17 November 1917: United States Navy destroyers USS Fanning and USS Nicholson capture Imperial German Navy U-boat SM U-58 off the south-west coast of Ireland, the first combat action in which U.S. ships take a submarine.
• November 24 - In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 9 members of the Milwaukee Police Department are killed by a bomb, the most fatal single event in U.S. police history until the 2001 attacks.
• December 1–31 - A severe cold wave in Interior Alaska produces the coldest recorded mean monthly temperatures in the United States. Fort Yukon averages and Eagle.
• December 6 - U.S. Navy destroyer is torpedoed and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean south west of the British Isles by German submarine, killing 66 crew in the first significant American naval loss of the war, the first ever U.S. destroyer loss to an enemy.
• December 7 - World War I: The United States declares war on Austria-Hungary.
• December 20 – Shepherdsville train wreck kills 49 and injuries 52 people. It becomes the deadliest train wreck in Kentucky history.
• December 25 - Why Marry?, the first dramatic play to win a Pulitzer Prize, opens at the Astor Theatre in New York City.
• December 26 - United States president Woodrow Wilson uses the Federal Possession and Control Act to place most U.S. railroads under the United States Railroad Administration, with the aim of transporting troops and materials for the war effort more efficiently.

Undated

• George Drumm writes the concert march "Hail, America" in New York City.
• The calendar year is the coolest averaged over the contiguous United States in mean temperature and minimum temperature. it is also the second-driest with a coast-to-coast average precipitation of against a long-term mean of.

Ongoing

• Progressive Era
• Lochner era
• U.S. occupation of Haiti
• Pancho Villa Expedition
• World War I, U.S. involvement
• First Red Scare

Births

January–February

• January 1
• * Shannon Bolin, actress and singer
• * Albin F. Irzyk, Brigadier General
• January 3
• * Roger W. Straus, Jr., publisher
• * Jesse White, actor
• January 5
• * Francis L. Kellogg, diplomat and socialite
• * Jane Wyman, film actress and philanthropist
• January 10 - Jerry Wexler, record producer
• January 11 - Henry Morgenthau III, author and television producer
• January 12 - Jimmy Skinner, ice hockey coach
• January 16 - Carl Karcher, businessman, founder of the Carl's Jr. hamburger chain
• January 22 - Michael Elkins, broadcaster and journalist
• January 24 - Ernest Borgnine, film actor
• January 26
• * William Verity Jr., politician
• * Louis Zamperini, American prisoner of war, Olympic distance athlete, and Christian evangelist
• January 29
• * John Raitt, actor and singer
• * David Rubitsky, U.S. Army sergeant
• February 6 - Arnold Spielberg, electrical engineer and father of Steven Spielberg
• February 11 - Sidney Sheldon, author and television writer
• February 12 - Dom DiMaggio, baseball player
• February 14 - Herbert A. Hauptman, mathematician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1985
• February 15 - Meg Wyllie, actress
• February 19 - Carson McCullers, author
• February 20
• * Manny Farber, painter and film critic
• * Wilma Vinsant, flight nurse who served during WWII
• February 22 - Reed Crandall, illustrator
• February 25 - Brenda Joyce, film actress
• February 26 - Robert Taft Jr., American politician
• February 27 - John Connally, Governor of Texas from 1963 to 1969
• February 28 - Bentley Kassal, attorney

March–April

• March 1 - Robert Lowell, poet
• March 4 - Clyde McCullough, baseball catcher
• March 8 - George H. Gay Jr., United States Navy officer
• March 10 - Edith Iglauer, writer
• March 11 - James Megellas, United States Army officer
• March 12 - Milton Resnick, painter
• March 19 - Peggy Ahern, actress
• March 21 - Anton Coppola, orchestra conductor and composer
• March 23 - Kenneth Tobey, actor
• March 26 - Rufus Thomas, African American R&B singer
• March 27 - Cyrus Vance, U.S. Secretary of State from 1977 to 1980
• March 29 - Man o' War, racehorse
• April 1
• * Sheldon Mayer, author and illustrator
• * Leon Janney, actor
• April 2 - Dabbs Greer, actor
• April 5 - Robert Bloch, author
• April 7 - R. G. Armstrong, Western film character actor
• April 8 - John Whitney, animator, composer, and pioneer in computer animation
• April 10 - Robert B. Woodward, organic chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1965
• April 12 - Helen Forrest, big band singer
• April 13
• * Robert O. Anderson, businessman, founder of Atlantic Richfield Oil Co.
• * Bill Clements, Governor of Texas from 1979 to 1983 and 1987 to 1991
• April 14 - Marvin Miller, baseball executive
• April 15 - Curtis Blake, businessman and philanthropist
• April 22 - Ambrose Schindler, American football player, actor
• April 23 - Dorian Leigh, model
• April 25 - Ella Fitzgerald, African American jazz singer
• April 26 - Virgil Trucks, baseball player
• April 28 - Robert Cornthwaite, character actor
• April 29
• * Celeste Holm, actress
• * Morton Tubor, film and sound editor
• April 30 - Bea Wain, big band singer

May

• May 1 - John Beradino, baseball player and television actor
• May 8
• * John Anderson, Jr., politician
• * Kenneth N. Taylor, translator of The Living Bible
• May 14
• * Lou Harrison, composer
• * Norman Luboff, choral director
• May 15 - Eleanor Maccoby, psychologist
• May 22 - Sid Melton, actor
• May 25 - Theodore Hesburgh, priest and educator
• May 26 - Ralph Weymouth, Vice admiral and anti-nuclear activist
• May 28
• * Papa John Creach, African American fiddler
• * Marshall Reed, actor
• May 29
• * Fred Ascani, U.S. Air Force test pilot
• * John F. Kennedy, 35th president of the United States from 1961 to 1963

June

• June 1 - William S. Knowles, chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2001
• June 2 - Max Showalter, actor
• June 3 - Leo Gorcey, actor
• June 4
• * Robert Merrill, operatic baritone
• * Howard Metzenbaum, U.S. Senator from Ohio
• June 6 - Kirk Kerkorian, businessman
• June 7
• * Gwendolyn Brooks, African American poet
• * Dean Martin, actor and singer
• June 8 - George D. Wallace, actor
• June 10
• * DeWitt Hale, politician
• * Al Schwimmer, Israeli businessman, founder of Israel Aerospace Industries
• June 11 - Joseph B. Wirthlin, businessman and religious leader
• June 15
• * John Fenn, analytical chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2002
• * Lash LaRue, Western film actor
• June 16
• * Katharine Graham, publisher
• * Irving Penn, photographer
• June 17 - Ben Bubar, presidential candidate
• June 18 - Ross Elliott, character actor
• June 19
• * Robert Baker Aitken, Zen Buddhist teacher
• * Robert Karnes, television actor
• * Dave Lambert, jazz vocalist
• June 24 - Lucy Jarvis, television producer
• June 28 - A. E. Hotchner, writer
• June 30
• * Susan Hayward, film actress
• * Lena Horne, African American singer and actress
• * Willa Kim, costume designer

July

• July 3
• * Donald Wills Douglas Jr., industrialist and Olympic sportsman
• * Albert N. Whiting, academic and administrator
• July 5 - Kathleen Gemberling Adkison, abstract painter
• July 7 - Larry O'Brien, politician and basketball commissioner
• July 9 - Frank Wayne, television game show producer
• July 10 - Don Herbert, television personality
• July 12 - Andrew Wyeth, painter
• July 16
• * Alex Urban, American football player
• * William Woodson, voice actor
• July 17
• * Lou Boudreau, baseball player and manager
• * Phyllis Diller, comedian
• * Red Sovine, country and folk singer-songwriter
• July 19 - William Scranton, politician
• July 22 - Larry Hooper, singer and musician
• July 24 - Clarence F. Stephens, mathematician and educator

August–September

• August 3 - Les Elgart, bandleader
• August 6 - Robert Mitchum, actor
• August 10 - Morgan Porteus, clergyman
• August 11
• * Dik Browne, cartoonist
• * Jack Smith, American football end
• August 12
• * LeRoy Grannis, surfing photographer
• * Marjorie Reynolds, actress
• August 14 - Marty Glickman, sports announcer
• August 17 - Walter Brown, blues shouter
• August 18
• * Zvi Keren Israeli pianist, musicologist and composer
• * Caspar Weinberger, U.S. Secretary of Defense from 1981 to 1987 and Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare from 1973 to 1975
• August 21 - Esther Cooper Jackson, African American civil rights activist
• August 22
• *John Lee Hooker, African American blues singer-songwriter
• * Raymond G. Perelman, businessman and philanthropist
• August 23
• * Marjorie G. Horning, biochemist and pharmacologist
• * Tex Williams, country singer
• August 24 - Dennis James, game show host
• August 25 - Mel Ferrer, film actor, director and producer
• August 28 - Jack Kirby, comic book artist
• August 29 - Isabel Sanford, African American television actress
• September 5 - Art Rupe, record producer
• September 11 - Donald Blakeslee, aviator
• September 13 - Robert Ward, composer
• September 15
• * Carola B. Eisenberg, psychiatrist and educator
• * Buddy Jeannette, basketball player and coach
• September 18 - June Foray, voice actress best known for "Rocky and Bullwinkle"
• September 20 - Red Auerbach, basketball coach and official
• September 25 - Johnny Sain, baseball player
• September 27 - Louis Auchincloss, novelist
• September 30 - Buddy Rich, jazz drummer

October–November

• October 3 - Les Schwab, businessman
• October 5 - Allen Ludden, game show host
• October 6 - Fannie Lou Hamer, African American civil rights activist
• October 7
• * June Allyson, actress
• * Virginia Newell, mathematician and politician
• October 8 - Danny Murtaugh, baseball player and manager
• October 9 - Don Marion Davis, child actor
• October 10 - Thelonious Monk, African American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music"
• October 11 - J. Edward McKinley, character actor
• October 13 - George Osmond, Osmond family patriarch
• October 15
• * Adele Stimmel Chase, artist
• * Jan Miner, actress
• * Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., historian and political commentator
• * Ralph Solecki, archaeologist
• October 16 - Alice Pearce, actress
• October 17 - Marsha Hunt, actress
• October 21 - Dizzy Gillespie, African American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer and composer
• November 1 - Clarence E. Miller, politician
• November 4 - Leonardo Cimino, actor
• November 6 - Harlan Warde, character actor
• November 11 - Tony F. Schneider, naval officer
• November 12 - Jo Stafford, pop singer
• November 13 - Robert Sterling, actor
• November 20 - Robert Byrd, U.S. Senator from West Virginia from 1959 to 2010
• November 25 - Stanley Wilson, incidental music composer
• November 27 - Buffalo Bob Smith, children's television host
• November 28 - Orville Rogers, pilot and marathons runner

December

• December 1 - Marty Marion, baseball player and manager
• December 4 - Arthur B. Singer, American wildlife artist
• December 9 - James Rainwater, physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1975
• December 13 - John Hart, American actor
• December 20
• * David Bohm, theoretical physicist, philosopher and neuropsychologist
• * Audrey Totter, film actress
• December 22 - Gene Rayburn, television personality
• December 30 - Seymour Melman, industrial engineer

Deaths

• January 10 - Buffalo Bill, frontiersman, bison hunter and showman
• January 16 - George Dewey, U.S. Admiral of the Navy
• January 21 - Francesca Alexander, illustrator
• February 21 - Fred Mace, silent film actor
• March 13 - Samuel Pasco, U.S. Senator from Florida from 1887 to 1899
• March 28 - Albert Pinkham Ryder, painter
• April 1 - Scott Joplin, African American ragtime composer and pianist
• April 8 - Richard Olney, politician
• April 13 - Diamond Jim Brady, businessman
• April 23 - Robert Koehler, painter
• May 19 - Alexander Caldwell, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1871 to 1873
• May 29 - Kate Harrington, teacher, writer and poet
• June 14 - Thomas W. Benoist, aviation pioneer
• July 28 - Stephen Luce, admiral
• August 15 - Martha Capps Oliver, poet and hymnwriter
• August 17 - John W. Kern, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1911 to 1917
• October 13 - Florence La Badie, silent film actress
• November 3 - Frederick Rodgers, admiral
• November 15 - John W. Foster, journalist and politician
• November 23 - William Ralph Emerson, architect
• December 9 - Nat M. Wills, vaudeville performer
• December 12 - Andrew Taylor Still, "father of osteopathy"
• December 22 - Frances Xavier Cabrini, religious sister, first American canonized as a saint
• December 28 - John Thornton, U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1910 to 1915